6th driest November on record

The month of November is a record breaker here in mid-Missouri. The past 30 days have brought abnormally dry conditions. Typically, from November 1 – November 30 Columbia sees 3.14″ of rainfall, but that has not been the case. Rainfall amounts have only amounted to .36″ for the entire month, which ranks it among one of the driest Novembers in all record.

The driest November ever recorded was in 1917 where Columbia saw only .10″ of rain. Luckily, we have received more rainfall than .10″, but Columbia is still coming in 2.78″ below average. This makes it the 6th driest November of all time. The most recent time we saw a month break into the top 10 list was nearly 30 years ago, back in 1989, where only .42″ of rainfall was recorded.

This dry spell has not been much help to the drought conditions that are spread across a good portion of the state. As of November 30th, almost all of mid-Missouri is under abnormally dry conditions. Almost 75% of the state is in a drought with over 3 million people living in these conditions statewide. Some areas in mid-Mo are even under a severe drought, Phelps and Gasconade Counties included. Luckily, with this week’s updated outlook we did not see worsening conditions from last week, despite the lack of precipitation here in mid-Missouri.

Rain chances look bleak as we head into the next 7 days. As of now, the only chance of rain in the 7-day forecast is on Monday where we will likely see less than .50″ of accumulation from light passing showers. Even beyond the short-term, it looks like mid-Missouri will see below average precipitation through December 13th.